Passive smoking and cognitive impairment

doi:10.1136/bmj.a3070

Published 12 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3070
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:a3070

Editorials

Passive smoking and cognitive impairment

Are likely to be linked, but confirmation is needed from furtherresearch

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is an established cause of coronaryheart disease, lung cancer, and premature death.¹ Mounting evidencealso links such exposure to airway disease, including asthma,chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and impaired lung function.²³ ⁴ On the basis of knowledge about these and other serioushealth effects, North America, Europe, and Australia have introducedsmoke-free legislation. None the less, millions of people arestill exposed to secondhand smoke in public places in many partsof the world. Globally, passive smoking is responsible for asubstantial burden of disease, disability, and mortality. Inthis context, the linked study by Llewellyn and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.b462)adds cognitive impairment to the list of adverse health effectsrelated to secondhand smoke.⁵

Although the serious negative health effects of exposure tosecondhand smoke are established, we still have much to learnabout the full spectrum of effects.¹ In particular, we haveonly just . . . [Full text of this article]

Mark D Eisner, associate professor of medicine

¹ Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 94143 USA

mark.eisner@ucsf.edu

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Exposure to secondhand smoke and cognitive impairment in non-smokers: national cross sectional study with cotinine measurement: David J Llewellyn, Iain A Lang, Kenneth M Langa, Felix Naughton, and Fiona E Matthews
BMJ 2009 338: b462. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]